Reuters: Mozambique parliament approves amended budget

Mozambique’s parliament has approved an amended 2016 budget, its official news agency said on Tuesday, as the southern African country cuts spending to cope with tough economic conditions.

AIM news agency said the amended budget stood at 243 billion meticais ($3.63 billion), down by 3 billion meticais from the original budget passed in December.

The amended budget presented in parliament by Finance Minister Adriano Maleiane on Monday showed a deficit rising to 11.3 percent of GDP from a previous 10.2 percent due to increased borrowing and a weaker currency.

Mozambique’s Economy and Finance Minister Adriano Maleiane

Mozambique, one of the world’s poorest countries but with huge untapped gas reserves, has been thrown into economic turmoil by revelations of financial mismanagement.

These include an $850 million Eurobond issued in 2013 to finance a tuna-fishing fleet. It later emerged that $500 million of it was actually spent on defence equipment and has since been reallocated to the defence budget.